THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

Caleb Quaye: UK ’67 Pop Psych Classic by Elton John Bandmate (with the Rocket Man Reputedly Playing Keys)

Caleb Quaye — “Baby Your Phrasing Is Bad”

A “magnificent” (liner notes to the Chocolate Soup for Diabetics Volumes 1–5 CD comp) and “very fuzzy guitar-driven song” (Vernon Joynson, The Tapestry of Delights Revisited), that is an “over-phased slice of distorted guitar, power drumming and wacked-out vocals.” (liner notes to Mojo Presents Acid Drops, Spacedust & Flying Saucers: Psychedelic Confectionery from the UK Underground 1965–1969) David Wells rhapsodizes:

[W]hat a record it is. If Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane is rightly regarded by the proverbial man in the street as the classic double-sided British studio psych pop record, then Baby Your Phrasing Is Bad/Woman of Distinction is, as far as the cognoscenti are concerned, its nearest subterranean equivalent. Distant disembodied vocals, fried lyrics, lashings of phasing, reverb, distortion and backwards tapes — what’s more, Caleb even remembered to write a couple of pretty good songs as well. Possibly he never issued another solo single because this one was impossible to top; then again, maybe it was just that nobody was interested (with the notable and curious exception of pirate station Radio Scotland, apparently). . . .

Record Collector: 100 Greatest Psychedelic Records: High Times and Strange Tales from Rock’s Most Mind-Blowing Era

Of Caleb, Mojo tells us that:

Born in London, but of Ghanaian descent, Caleb Quaye enjoyed a long and successful career as a backing musician and session player (Nilsson, Lou Reed, The Who, Elton John) for the best part of two decades. . . . [Elton John] is rumoured to have played keyboards [on “Baby”] . . . . He and Quaye . . . in 1969 would together record a (still unreleased) album under the name of The Bread and Beer Band [see #175].

liner notes to Mojo Presents Acid Drops, Spacedust & Flying Saucers: Psychedelic Confectionery from the UK Underground 1965–1969

Wells adds that:

Back in the second half of the 1960s . . . he was employed as resident guitar-prodigy-cum-teenage-studio-whizzkid-producer for Beatles publisher Dick James’s company . . . . Quaye . . . would play on pretty much every recording made by . . . Elton John, from such heavily psychedelic late 60s demos as Regimental Sergeant Zippo to million-selling releases like the 1976 double album Blue Moves. . . . When he found religion in the early 1980s . . . Caleb sold what, according to drummer Roger Pope, was the biggest private record collection in the country to Elton . . . .

Record Collector: 100 Greatest Psychedelic Records: High Times and Strange Tales from Rock’s Most Mind-Blowing Era

“In 1968, Quaye played guitar in Elton’s touring band, a position he occupied on and off for the next decade, as well as forming Hookfoot.” (liner notes to the Chocolate Soup for Diabetics Volumes 1–5 CD comp)

See my website at bracefortheobscure60srock.com.